How S.F. City Hall got its golden dome

With City Hall turning 100, it’s time to tell the real story of how we got the gold leaf onto its magnificent dome.

It was a few years after the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. Part of my agenda when I became mayor was bringing a sense of luster back to San Francisco, and making City Hall once again a true “people’s palace” was at the top of my list.

We got the building seismically upgraded. We got the dingy offices returned to their wood-paneled glory, and the North and South light courts were made into some of the best event rooms in the city. But I could not use a dime of federal earthquake-recovery money to bring real gold back to the dome.

One day, one of the city’s biggest architects, Jeffrey Heller, comes to me and says, “I’m mad as all hell at your planning department for trying to force me to include some kind of public art in this building I’m designing. It just doesn’t fit. Can’t I just give the city some money for art somewhere else?”

Click! The light bulb turned on.

“Where is your building?” I asked.

“Just down the street.”

“Can you see the dome of City Hall from it?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“OK, how about instead of putting this required art piece in a building that only some people will see, we put it on top of City Hall as part of an artwork that everyone can see? And that ‘art’ will be the gold leaf on top of the dome.”

And that’s what we did.

It wasn’t long before every developer with a pending project realized that the quickest path to the front of the approval line was to come in with some gold leaf for City Hall and a paintbrush.

I got it all done overnight.

Once again, despite the cries of Democratic lawmakers, Gov. Jerry Brown got the budget he wanted, and he got it on time.

Want to know why Brown keeps getting his way with the Legislature?

Quick, name your state senator or Assembly member.

Or name any state senator or Assembly member.

That’s why.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein is telling friends that she hasn’t made up her mind yet about whether she’ll retire when she’s up for re-election in 2018.

To me, that’s a clear indication she’s running again.

And by the way, a happy 82nd birthday Monday to California’s senior senator.

I’ve been told that in the interest of bicyclist safety, there is serious talk at City Hall of putting a bike lane all the way along Stockton Street.

That would mean mixing bikes and cars from near Fisherman’s Wharf through the heart of Chinatown, through the Stockton tunnel and then down past Union Square.

It would probably be safer to put a bike lane down the middle of Interstate 80.

For years we’ve had black people passing for whites, so the story about the ex-president of the NAACP chapter in Spokane, Wash., being white but “self-identifying” as black is a real head-spinner.

Behind all the shock and chatter, however, the story raises some real questions about reverse discrimination.

From what I hear, everyone thought Rachel Dolezal was doing a fine job with the NAACP. Once the news about her whiteness got out, she was gone.

We’ve had white presidents of NAACP local chapters before. So why can’t we have a white person who self-identifies as black?

Black or white, if she was doing a good job, she should have stayed.

Poor Jeb Bush. He is so unlucky at every turn.

He finally announces that he’s running for president, and Donald Trump promptly upstages him by getting in the race, too.

Did you hear the one about Donald Trump trying on an Apple Watch? The clerk says, “Ask it anything. It has the answer.”

The Donald asks, “What’s my heart rate?”

It comes back: “Does not copy. Cannot find.”

Movie time: “Jurassic World.” I was skeptical going in, but I left a fan. It’s got some of the best animation and the computer-driven effects to come out of Hollywood in a long time. And this time, the prehistoric raptors have Google brains.

Toss in a boy-meets-girl story, and you have a great couple of hours of entertainment.

Some postcard observations from my trip to New York last week:

Times Square was just as packed on the verge of summer as it is on New Year’s Eve. Automobiles are virtually banned in the heart of Manhattan, not so much because of rules and regulations, but because of all the people.

You’re better off getting around on a pedicab — that is, if you don’t suffer a stroke over the price. I let my teenage daughter talk me into getting in one of those things and got the shock of my life. It’s $4 a minute.

Finally, the Broadway matinee crowd is made up of some of the worst-dressed people you’ll ever see. There are few sights as unappealing as a 42-year-old dressed up in Forever 21.

Two-term mayor of San Francisco, renowned speaker of the California Assembly, and widely regarded as the most influential African American politician of the late twentieth century, Willie L. Brown, Jr. has been at the center of California politics, government and civic life for four decades. His career spans the American presidency from Lyndon Johnson to George W. Bush, and he’s worked with every California governor from Pat Brown to Arnold Schwarzenegger. From civil rights to education reform, tax policy, economic development, health care, international trade, domestic partnerships and affirmative action, he’s left his imprimatur on every aspect of politics and public policy in the Golden State. As mayor of California’s most cosmopolitan city, he refurbished and rebuilt the nation’s busiest transit system, pioneered the use of bond measures to build affordable housing, created a model juvenile justice system, and paved the way for a second campus of UCSF to serve as the anchor of a new development that will position the city as a center for the burgeoning field of biotechnology.

Today, he heads the Willie L. Brown Jr. Institute on Politics and Public Service, where he shares his knowledge and skills with a new generation of California leaders.